For my first review of
classic mono recordings for Enjoy the Music.com
I chose my favorite record: Mercury's 1954 recording of Tchaikovsky's Swan
Lake with Antal Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. In
quick succession, Mercury released Peter Ilyich's two other major ballet
scores, The Sleeping Beauty and the ever-popular Christmas perennial,
The Nutcracker  the full-length score, not just the Suite.
Dorati never recorded Swan Lake a second time, but he did the others,
and in stereo: once for Sleeping Beauty and twice for The
Nutcracker. Herewith, my observations of the lot.

The Nutcracker

Family-size
album of 12.5 x 14.3 inches, with the Christmas candy- stripe cover and the
spine edge string that barely holds on to the booklet. Released in 1955, it
was the first complete LP set of Tchaikovsky's dazzling score.
[The popularity of the familiar suites, derived mostly from the second act,
has led many to think that TheNutcracker Suite is the same
thing as The Nutcracker, even after attending a full-length
production of the ballet.]

Mercury's was the first recording that fully followed the composer's
indications for untraditional instrumentation, including children's toy
instruments and an actual gunshot. (Mr. T does love those things that go
bang.) The project generated considerable excitement in the
company--musicians, engineers, and designers alike. The result is a classic,
and one not easy to find in mint condition, either in the original dynamic
MF or the more refined FR pressing. At least the performance is available on
CD.

The key to interpreting The Nutcracker is to convey its childlike
innocence and magical wonder while maintaining the basic kinetic energy of
the ballet. Tchaikovsky was already beginning to explore more dramatic
sweeps in his Sleeping Beauty (1889), but there was nothing in
nineteenth-century ballet to quite prepare us for the likes of the
Nutcracker's battle with the armies of the mouse king in the first act.

Teachers of music appreciation like to distinguish between
"program" and "absolute" music, offering Berlioz and
Liszt as exemplars  as much because they were said to write symphonies
that didn't follow the "rules" of symphonic construction as that their
music was especially evocative. Prior to Swan Lake (1877), ballet
music was merely danceable, not all that suggestive of the image. Composers
were able to get the mood of the thing, but not necessarily the visual.
Tchaikovsky, in his three ballets, changed the course of dance theatre
forever. There are stretches where our imaginations are compelled to
visualize the action, whether we have seen it in the flesh or not.
From his three great ballets, and not least The Nutcracker (1892), it
isn't far to Stravinsky's TheFirebird, Petrouchka and Le
Sacre (1909-13), and eventually to Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet
(1935).

Most of us have seen at least one production of this ballet. The
music is so associated with images from Balanchine to Disney that all we
have to do is close our eyes to be swept away to fantasy-land. No
other ballet has quite that currency. Tchaikovsky was said to be famously
unfond of his offspring; but what did he know? He was just one year short of
being a dead man. Not even Stravinsky's elegant Firebird or primal Rite
of Spring has such a connection to our collective visual memory.
In my view, The Nutcracker, in its ability to connect danceable music
with visual drama, easily and directly presages everything from Prokofiev's Romeo
& Juliet to Disney's Fantasia.

[An aside regarding Romeo: The Kirov Ballet shelved the project
that the company itself had commissioned, and the Bolshoi dismissed
Prokofiev's score as undanceable. It was premiered in 1938 by a lesser
company in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and eventually staged by the Kirov in early
1940, the same year that saw the release of Fantasia. While
Prokofiev failed to capture Disney's imagination then or in 2000, the idea
that symphonic music might have compelling visual cues was not lost, and I
think it's fair to say that Fantasia is the first important example
of abstract dance in cinema.]

Dorati
recorded this score twice with Mercury  the 1955 mono with Minneapolis,
and ten years later in stereo (released simultaneously in mono, as pictured
above) with the London Symphony  and yet again in stereo with the
Amsterdam Concertgebouw on Philips. Each of these has distinctive qualities,
but they are three best Nutcrackers on record.

Dorati is well served by the LSO, but for all its sonic glory and
sweetness of playing, the LSO does not generally equal the fantastic wonder
the MSO conveys. Scene for scene there are exceptions  for instance in
the opening scene of Act 2 in the 1955 recording, where Dorati is more
sluggish than regal. But in general the mono is the more magical. Sonically,
the MSO mono projects a surprising degree of inner life in the orchestra, as
well as considerable depth to the stage, though it is no match for the LSO
stereo for a full sense of stage.

Sonics
and performance alike mature by the time of the Concertgebouw recording. The
sound is more luscious, the playing and conducting more confident.
However, we are less engaged  held at arm's length by a bit too much
starch, particularly in the second act, where Dorati is uncharacteristically
lethargic (as is Ansermet in his gorgeous stereo recording for Decca).
Perhaps it has to do with the mono Mercury being part of the trio of
complete Tchaikovsky ballets that were recorded consecutively. Whatever the
reason, the MSO seems to play for an invisible stage filled with children
and dancing fantastic creatures. The LSO, and the Concertgebouw even more
so, are almost too grown-up by comparison, although I still highly recommend
the LSO version. We may appreciate the technical marvels and brilliant
orchestral playing of the stereo productions, but we delight in the
childlike wonder of the MSO mono. You can find both FR and original MF
pressings in the original cover; the trick is finding a mint MF.

The Nutcracker. MSO / Dorati. Mercury OL-2-101

Performance:

Sound Quality:

Enjoyment:

Historical Significance:

The Sleeping Beauty

It
has been said with good reason that the best score for any Disney animated
feature is by one of those dead white Europeans. The Sleeping Beauty
is relentlessly and by turns dramatic, romantic and fantastic. I don't find
it as danceable a score as either TheNutcracker or Swan
Lake, but it is gorgeous and symphonic--the most dazzling of the three.
The public outside Russia didn't see a full-length production of Marius
Petipa's original choreography until 1921, when it was revived first by
Diaghilev's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and later by London's Sadler's Wells
Ballet. Diaghilev found that public interest was not forthcoming until he
reduced the scenario to less than a quarter of its length, re-titling it Aurora's
Wedding. In one version or another, The Sleeping Beauty has since
become a mainstay of the classic ballet repertoire.

Dorati
recorded TheSleeping Beauty first in mono with Minneapolis in
1955, and again 26 years later for Philips in stereo with the Concertgebouw.
Oh, to have had Dorati and the Concertgebouw recorded by Mercury on Philips
vinyl. Heavens, what an orchestra! But what does it matter if the
performance is mush? This Concertgebouw is altogether too agreeable
compared to Mercury's MSO. Perhaps the Concertgebouw is simply too good, and
perhaps the MSO was trying harder in Dorati's (and Mercury's) earlier days.
Whatever the cause, the Minneapolis performance has spirit, while the Dutch
have only good taste.

The Introduction scares the heebie-jeebies out of you on the Mercury, but
on the Philips it is simply gorgeous. And while Anatole Fistoulari's 2 LP
set with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (London LL-636/637) doesn't exactly
frighten us in the opening pages, there is plenty of energy, even if not
demonic.

In
the final act, the rhythmic pointing by the MSO woodwinds in Red Riding
Hood and the Wolf (#22) is absent on the Philips. The
Concertgebouw winds are flawlessly elegant, but you can't dance to them. To
put it another way, Dorati's 1955 reading is ballet music; the 1981 smacks
of the concert hall. Fistoulari's gentle rhythmic swagger heats up,
along with the texture and tempo. Ansermet points up the flutes nicely, but
forgets about them when the bassoons arrive. (Or perhaps that's the effect
of London's stereophonic version; I don't have the mono.)

Some of my favorite music in the ballet is the opening of Act 1, where
the castle is abustle in preparation for the coming out of Princess Aurora.
The strings scurrying over the regal horn calls set an anticipatory mood as
well as does any ballet score in the ensuing decades until the opening
"Tumult" of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Fistoulari gets
more excitement out of his players, blending horns and strings and
increasing the pace, but ignoring the possibilities of dramatic counterpoint
between the royals and the hired help. On the other hand, the big
Waltz that comes out of this scene is so set off from its precedent by
Fistoulari that it catches your breath. (Perhaps it helps that some of
the music is cut in his edition. It is only a two-disc set, after all.) On
the other hand, Ansermet blows the Waltz altogether; it appears out of
nowhere. Nor is it as drop-dead gorgeous as either MSO/Dorati or Paris/Fistoulari.
Ansermet seems bent on discovering Tchaikovsky's Symphony #8: he so
integrates the horns and strings in the opening bars that there is neither
choreographic nor dramatic possibility (in the sense of characters in a
play). L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande sounds magnificent, but here again
the score is played as concert, not ballet music. As such, I give Ansermet
points over Dorati/Philips.

In the Pas d'Action that closes the second act (# 15), there is
simply not enough rhythmic energy in Ansermet's reading. Fistoulari's solo
cello breathes as would a dancer; Ansermet's cello takes symphonic breaths
(echoes of the Andante cantabile from the Fifth Symphony.) Dorati,
much closer to Fistoulari, places the episode poignantly in the narrative.

One
of the most problematic sections is "The Sleep" (No. 19), which sets the
stage for the kiss of awakening at the end of Act 1. One of the world's
longest-held tremolos, high in the violins, gives way only after five and
one-half minutes (honest!) to the cellos. During this mist there is scarcely
any melodic activity. We hold our collective breaths for the arrival of the
Prince to break the spell. Non-kinetic perhaps, but in the context of the
ballet we feel the animated release at the moment of the kiss--and to
prepare us there must be proper suspense before his arrival. Ansermet
handles the problem by cutting away from the violin tremolo directly to the
cellos after less than fifteen seconds. While that solves the structural
challenge, there's no breath to hold. Fistoulari's solution is to cut the
sequence altogether. Dorati bites the bullet and gives it his all, asking
the MSO to do likewise. Tchaikovsky isn't much help here, providing more
texture than music, like so many parting curtains. But dramatically
the scene is essential, however difficult to bring off musically.

Just
to confuse everyone, Mercury's Sleeping Beauty is available complete
in four different editions, with either 3 or 4 LPs, depending. The 3-LP
versions are in the original deluxe edition with MF pressings, pictured at
the top of this review. The hardcover editions, with RFR pressing, are
pictured immediately above. TheSleeping Beauty is also
available across four separate LPs, titled respectively: Prologue ~ The
Christening; Act 1 ~ The Spell; Act 2 ~ The Vision;
and Act 3 ~ Aurora's Wedding. While Diaghilev's ballet ("Aurora's
Wedding" MG 50118) has the same title, it is not identical to the
original music for the final act. In one of the 4-LP sets, the cover
art changes with each LP (an example of which features the cover art for the
second act, above); in the other set, the cover art remains the same: a
photo of Margot Fonteyn poised elegantly under an arch, as pictured above.

Antal Dorati's seminal mid-50s Mercury recordings of the Tchaikovsky
ballets, along with Solti's Ring cycle and Dorati's complete survey
of the Haydn symphonies  both for Decca in stereo  lead the pack of
those ambitious, successful recording projects, a short list of which
includes: the Tatrai's recordings of the important Opp. of Haydn string
quartets on Hungaroton; Alfred Brendel's early recordings of the Beethoven
piano sonatas for Vox; and Murray Perahia's performances of the Mozart piano
concertos for Columbia. We return to these recordings repeatedly for
insight and pleasure.